Airtel Marketing Mix (4Ps) & Marketing Strategy
Marketing strategy of Airtel through marketing mix framework which covers the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion).
Airtel Product Strategy:
Airtel provides a wide variety of services in the field of telecom. The summary of the products in the marketing mix of Airtel are described as below:
• Mobile Services: Airtel provides both voice and data service to its customers. Currently Airtel has got the largest customer base in India crossing over 358 million. Airtel was the first one to provide 4G services in India. Also Airtel provides a variety of low cost plans for its voice and data services. Airtel mobile service can be classified into:
o Prepaid service eg. Recharge offers , roaming packs, blackberry packs, Family share pack, Handset pack etc.
o Postpaid service eg. Bill payment, My Plan, Roaming plans, other special offers etc.
o Other value added service eg. SMS, MMS, Hello tunes, Airtel Money, Airtel Live, 2G 3G 4G internet, voice mail, DND services etc.
• Telemedia Services: Airtel provides broadband services across 87 cities in India. Some of the products offered are 4G homes internet service, broadband internet connection, Dongels and routers for 4G and 3G services.
• Digital TV services: Airtel TV provides over 540 HD channels with superior picture quality. Airtel Digital TV+ setup box also allows user to record TV programs that can be watched later.
• Airtel business: Airtel provides variety of Information and communication Technology services like data centre, network integration, tower infrastructure service to other business, government and carrier customers.
Image: Wikimedia
This concludes the product strategy in Airtel marketing mix & strategy.
Airtel Price/Pricing Strategy:
Below is the pricing strategy in Airtel marketing mix strategy:
Airtel follows a competitive pricing strategy because of the huge competition in telecom segment in India from competitors like Reliance Jio, Vodafone etc. The pricing strategies of all telecom companies are monitored by Telecom Regulation Authority of India to ensure fair prices are being charged to all customers.
Hence, despite regulation, the most important aspect in the pricing strategy in the marketing mix of Airtel is based on competitive pricing strategy. Airtel provides flexibility to its customer to choose and customize their plan according to their preference and pay tariff according to chosen pack (eg. MyPlan service to customer to choose their plan and pay price accordingly). The aim of Airtel’s pricing strategy is customer retention by providing them with combo offers to boost revenue. Airtel pricing strategies in broadband segment is also of very low cost and attracts huge customer base to avail affordable plans. Airtel faces tough competition in terms of price war with other telecom companies like Reliance Jio and the customer loyalty for any telecom company is nearly zero and entirely dependent on price of services, so Airtel offers its basic product like call, data, SMS and other value added services at a cheap rate
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Airtel Place & Distribution Strategy:
Following is the distribution strategy in the Airtel marketing mix:
Airtel sells its service through distributers and retailers, which form the basis of place strategy in the marketing mix of Airtel. Airtel has got a wide distribution network which spans across 20 countries. Airtel’s intensive distribution network enables it to cover the remotest area. Airtel uses retail stores, convenient stores, roadside stalls etc to make its service available to customers. Airtel makes its service available through businesses like paan shops, chemist’s shops, groceries shops etc. Airtel has also launched ‘Project leap’ in the year 2015 to expand its coverage to over 5 lakh villages. Under this project, Airtel will spend 60 thousand crores over a period of next three years to expand its network and make its services available across India.
Airtel also offers a dedicated 24 customer support service team which can be reached online or through telephone to report any issue or solve customer queries.
Airtel Promotion & Advertising Strategy:
The promotional and advertising strategy in the Airtel marketing mix is as follows:
Airtel is an established and well known brand in telecom sector. Airtel organizes a strong promotional campaigns for its services utilizing all media channels from TV, print, events, social media etc. Hence the promotion strategy in the marketing mix of Airtel is extremely comprehensive i.e. they do a 360 branding. Airtel has used all the big celebrities to endorse their services like Shahrukh Khan, AR Rehman, Sachin Tendulkar, Vidya Balan etc. Airtel has also organized some famous marketing campaigns to target youth audience and build its brand like ‘Har Ek friend Zaroori hota he’ and ‘Jo Tera Hain Wo Mera Hain’. Airtel also sponsors various events like Cricket matches, Grand Prix etc and organized events like Airtel Delhi Half Marathon etc under their community development programme and brand promotion. Airtel has also got a good presence on social media like Facebook, Twitter etc. Which it uses for its service promotion and solve queries of customers. Airtel also engages in public relations like Education campaigns, girls child awareness campaigns etc.
Since this is a service marketing brand, here are the other three Ps to make it the 7Ps marketing mix of Airtel.
People:
Airtel focuses on ‘Win with people’ approach for its effective business strategy. Airtel has got an employee base of 18179 with a commendable employee engagement score of 79%. Airtel invests heavily in the training and development of the skills of its employees. In 2016, Airtel invested 168 million to nurture talent within its organization and build high performance culture. Airtel also focuses on developing a healthy work culture and efficient functioning of its cross functional teams. Airtel’s Talent First Strategy focuses on building entrepreneurship and leadership skills in employees. The people strategy in the marketing mix of Airtel focuses on hiring the right talent, training them and rewarding them. Airtel also promotes gender diversity in its organization by promoting women friendly working policies. Airtel promotes itself as a learning organization where all employees follow a learning development plan based on their career aspiration. Airtel also gives rewards and recognition to indentify and retain talent within organization.
Process:
Airtel process for providing service to its customer is very easy and streamlined. Airtel process focuses on providing a reliable and responsive service to its customers. To get a plan or new connection the customers can directly go to any Airtel’s service centres or contact the support service to activate/deactivate a plan. Airtel’s customer can get their queries resolved 24*7 by contacting the customer support number from anywhere across India. Airtel also opened India’s first Open network initiative under Project Leap that displays network strength across India. This transparent policy allows customer to check network strength and coverage and report any issue easily. Airtel also allow its customer easily to identify various plans and pick the most suitable plan. Airtel customers are free to evaluate the services and then can carry on or switch to a different brand using number portability. Airtel focuses on delivering optimal services without loss of quality through their commitment towards its customers.
Physical Evidence:
Airtel retail outlet and relationship centres serves as a service point to its customers. The Company-Owned-Company-Operated Airtel stores try to serve its customer in the best possible way by providing a one stop solution for all customer needs like instant connection, dongle and broadband connection etc. These stores provide a superior customer experience with excellent look and feel of all the outlets and convenient location within any city. Airtel products like sim card cover and recharge vouchers are beautifully designed to appeal to the customer. Airtel provides its digital TV services through its set top boxes which are easy to configure and use. All these products acts as a differentiating factor for Airtel service marketing. Hence, all these help in summarizing the marketing mix of Airtel.
About Airtel:
Airtel is an Indian based global telecom service company with headquarter at New Delhi, India. Bharti Airtel was founded by Sunil Bharti Mittal in the year 1995. Initially Bharti Cellular Limited started providing services from Delhi when under the brand name ‘Airtel’ and gradually this brand has grown to be the largest mobile network provider in India and fourth largest network provider globally in terms of subscriber base. Currently Airtel has its global presence operating in 20 countries covering Asia and Africa. Airtel is known for its innovative business process of outsourcing all non-core operations like network planning and IT services to third parties and focusing only on its core operation of finance ,sales and marketing.
Airtel has perfected its decentralized business model called as ‘Minute factory model’ which focuses to build high usage and low cost customer base to increase its profitability. This successful model has also been adopted by Airtel’s competitors.
Browse marketing strategy and 4Ps analysis of more brands similar to Airtel. The Marketing Mix & Strategy section covers 4Ps and 7Ps of more than 800 brands in 2 categories.
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